Using Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to block unnecessary traffic

I encounter far too many networks with policies in place that disable the built-in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security (WFAS) by default on all their machines. Usually, if I ask about this, the reason is either unknown or 'It's always been that way.' I think this is a carry-over from the Windows XP/Server 2003 days, or maybe even older, when Windows Firewall was less than desirable. WFAS in today's operating systems is very advanced, stable, and beneficial – a far cry from the days of Windows XP. If you want to stop unnecessary or malicious traffic from getting to your server, look no further than this built-in tool.

Getting ready

We are going to use two Windows Server 2019 machines for this task. We will test connectivity between the two to set our baseline and then create a rule that blocks the functions we just tested. Next, we will test again to ensure that our changes...